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July 22, 2010

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If buzz is your measure, it’s been a great week for the conservative new media.

Forget the oil spill or the economy. It was the e-mails of some liberal writers and a speech by an obscure Agriculture Department official from Georgia that drove the conversation in Washington, thanks to two relatively new and increasingly influential right-leaning websites and the two sharply contrasting conservatives behind them.

In some ways, Andrew Breitbart and Tucker Carlson are polar opposites — one a disaffected Los Angelino and wizard of the clickability formulas behind the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post who has vowed to bring about the downfall of the institutional left; the other a preppy East Coaster with a long cable career who proclaimed he would bring some civility and journalistic chops to the fledgling conservative online media.

Both caused uproars with their revelations about the unguarded comments of liberals. But in both cases, those revelations proved decidedly less incendiary when the context of the comments was added. And both have been criticized for failing to provide, or even trying to provide, that context.

The nice thing about the new-media space is how quickly it self-corrects. Breitbart's sites now have a growing credibility problem. Mike Flynn defends Big Government by pointing out that it merely posted what it had but doesn't say if it sought the fuller context, as I hope most reporters would have.

And for all the talk of the speed of the Internet, online, like offline, reporting is a long, endless game, and with fewer and fewer trusted institutions to dispense it at will, credibility is a scarce and extremely valuable commodity.

Hate to tell you but NO ONE on the internet is credible. You read it and you decide if it's true or you look for another source to verify. The 24/7 news cycle tarnishes everything and ruins people's lives. This is the great downfall of society. Somehow, your business is everyone's business. People get hate emails/death threats because someone is quick to "publish" a news story without any facts or even researching it on their own. This is one f-d up lazy society.

"But in both cases, those revelations proved decidedly less incendiary when the context of the comments was added. "
Boy what a line to use. Trying to lump yourselves with Sherrod is a nice stretch. These liberals media members on the list should be ashamed of themselves but instead like typical media members they blame everyone but themselves for being complete biased idiots who wanted to frame news.

True, Ben. And it remains to be seen whether Politico's credibility will survive the revelations of JournoList's collective plotting against certain conservative speakers exercising their first amendment rights, and their rights in this democracy to disagree with their government.

The JournoList exposure will upend the credibility of a number of journalists (already has.) The difference is this: Breitbart and most conservative blogs advertise themselves as such, openly. People take them for what they are: insurgent blogs trying to expose mainstream bias.

But the JournoList's attack on credibility is much more serious. These are mainstream reporters previously taken seriously as objective, from mainstream and major publications that present themselves as neutral arbiters of the news.

The revelations about their collusion to attack conservatives as racist -- recklessly and without evidence to help a Democrat -- have contributed to the racist charge becoming so politicized and unanchored to evidence that it is now meaningless.

No one will ever take a racism charge seriously again without comprehensive, direct evidence. That only makes life harder for minorities and women. And you have liberal journalists, the friends of minorities, to thank for it.

Posted By: True, Ben. And it remains to be seen whether Politico's credibility will survive the revelations of | July 22, 2010 at 12:26 PM

As was already stated, you know what you're getting with Breitbart. He isn't pretending to be objective like many on the Journolist including you, Ben. Come clean, repent and change your tagline to "former Journolister". Are you on the new list, by the way?

Breitbart and Carlson have no 'credibility problems'. The ones who have a credibility problem are the liberal so-called clique of "journolist" --which includes Politico, surprise, surprise--who became advocates and shills for the Democratic Party when they agreed to give up their journalist integrity and to work for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Anybody who has followed Ben Smith's and Jonathan Martin's blogs on this site, knows that the slanting of all news and censorship of anything politically damaging to Obama and the Democratic Party has been going on for years. The fact is that all Politico news and opinion is controlled and manipulated, like Pravda was during the Joe Stalin days in the former USSR, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

I notice you left THIS website out when we already know there are at least THREE "journalists" on the now defunct journolist ,one of whom actively worked to get Obama elected -Rozen,one-Allen-who talks to the white house daily to get what they want out, and yourself Ben-when you nearly ALWAYS parrot exactly the democrats talking points. Do you people at POLITICO actually believe you have any credibility? Another use of Alinsky-tactic #13-freeze,ridicule,mock,jeer,alienate,scoff,say they have nothing worth saying,and when all else fails-play the race card as much as possible-even if it is not true,ethical,or even safe for the country. You all still don't seem to realize that the gig is up-the curtain has been flung aside-the mask is off. ONLY hardcore koolaid drinkers believe a word you report, but instead check three or four sources on the internet before putting any stock in your words.

Liberal media outed once again for being leg tingled Obama plantation slaves. But, we all knew that already....What's funny to watch is the reaction of the alleged mainstream media about being caught in their red faced, red handed, Obama loving circle jerk.

Posted By: Liberal media outed once again for being leg tingled Obama plantation slaves. But, we all knew that | July 22, 2010 at 12:46 PM

Are Vogel and Haggerty Journolistos too? Or are they circling the wagon to take the heat off?
Less incendiary? To Whom? Perhaps you can spin your way out of what you did but you and those like you have been exposed to be hacks. Can you see the bias in your reporting. Look at your stories for heavens sake. Do you not see bias? You helped create the mess that America has become. You prevented the vetting of Obama to instead focus on Palin??? You kidding me? Perhaps you can write and explain what is fundamentally wrong with America that you want it changed? Dude- in education, the fundamentals are reading, writing and math. What did you not like that was fundamentally American? You have helped destroy the ability of anyone from ever calling someone racist again and taken the term sexist away... those words are meaningless now. Breitbart does not have a growing credibility problem because in his initial blurb, he said that the story was one of self discovery. It was but also one of the NAACP agreeing to the racist remarks. Watch the whole video - she is a racist. She also hates Republicans and she's ugly in her opinions. You hate Breitbart because he has exposed the lies that you helped cover up. Hack.

What's the takeaway from all this? Conservatives commentators and leading public figures lie without remorse. They intentionally deceive. They smear and slander. They try to distract us from the real problems of the days, about which they appear to have nothing useful to say, and waste our time trumping up ridiculous arguments about non-events. What does any of this have to do with the economy, the wars, the oil spill? And sorry, don't tell me the left does this do. There just aren't any comparable examples.

Posted By: What's the takeaway from all this? Conservatives commentators and leading public figures lie without | July 22, 2010 at 12:57 PM

Ben, I think you're normally spot-on with your observations about online political media, and you've got a lot to add to the conversation.
I think this post, however, misses some fairly important points about the Sherrod debacle. Your line, "The nice thing about the new media space is how quickly it self-corrects," I hate to say, is a bit crass. Try telling that to Shirley Sherrod.
To me, the key observation is how "buzz" itself has so come to dominate political "journalism" that any semblance of truth or objectivity has been thrown out the window. And this change is hardly harmless. All it took was one doctored video on a couple inane websites for the Obama administration to fire an innocent woman and thrust itself into an absurd debate about race. I say "absurd" not because we shouldn't discuss the role of race in welfare, farm, or employment policy; on the contrary, we should. But let's do so in a rational, careful manner, not subject to the lies and crap flung against the wall by some right-wing losers trying to make a name for themselves.

Oh Ben, is that anger I hear? Carlson was perfectly right to post the Journolisto documents, what they said had no defense. And Breitbart posted a video of a woman admitting she as a government employee had willingly violated the Civil Rights Act.

12:57, can you be more specific? Exactly what "conservative lies" are you talking about.

Anything you suspect is deception about Sherrod's video can be wiped out by actually going to the NAACP site and listening to her whole speech. That way, you won't have to depend on "left" or "right" spin.

Vilnick may take the fall, but this whole mess, sparked by the NAACP's out-of-the-blue attack on tea partiers after Michelle Obama's speech there exhorting them to "increase the intensity level".

Obama is president because large numbers of white people voted for him. 70% of all Americans approved of Obama on inauguration day. That's what's been squandered by his incessant references to race.

The spectacle of the Brown Beret video at HotAir's Green Room is truly the culmination of this White House's approach to race. It's the wrong direction to take.

Posted By: 12:57, can you be more specific? Exactly what "conservative lies" are you talking about.

Self-correcting? Is this a joke? Breitbart should have ZERO credibility, instead he has a little bit of a problem. Fox News is on this bizarre jihad to incite a race war, to the point where they put out Breitbart's stuff without ever checking any of it. A solid month of black panther nonsense, and nobody else in the media appears to notice this or think it's a problem. And your response to the Sherrod story is to condemn the Obama Administration for treating Fox News like a legitimate media outlet...10 months after crucifying them for suggesting that Fox News is "not a news organization!" At this point, they can put anything on the air and no matter how ridiculous or false, you guys treat it as news and expect the Administration to respond. You treat their ridiculous ginned-up nonsense as though it's reporting on the news, when it's actually them CREATING the news. Seriously, Ben, what does Fox have to do at this point to stop being taken seriously by all of you?

As was already stated, you know what you're getting with Breitbart. He isn't pretending to be objective like many on the Journolist including you, Ben. Come clean, repent and change your tagline to "former Journolister". Are you on the new list, by the way?
Posted By: Ben serves weaksauce
I see your point since we all know Breitbart is a rightwing hack he has no responsibility to tell the truth. Okay Gotcha....No I understand the Fox News buisness model.

Posted By: As was already stated, you know what you're getting with Breitbart. He isn't pretending to be object | July 22, 2010 at 01:38 PM

As was already stated, you know what you're getting with Breitbart. He isn't pretending to be objective like many on the Journolist including you, Ben. Come clean, repent and change your tagline to "former Journolister". Are you on the new list, by the way?
Posted By: Ben serves weaksauce
I see your point since we all know Breitbart is a rightwing hack he has no responsibility to tell the truth. Okay Gotcha....No I understand the Fox News buisness model.

Posted By: As was already stated, you know what you're getting with Breitbart. He isn't pretending to be object | July 22, 2010 at 01:38 PM

Ben Smith lecturing anyone about a credibility problem. Pot meet Kettle. Ben do you not recognize that you have no credibility. You have been exposed as a pawn for your leftist masters. Leftist Hack Attack !!!!

That's cool Jack. So you admit Oblowma disregarded FoX then treated their word as gospel. By firing Sharrod. I'm just not good with 2-faced people like you libs seem to be. BTW...Obama obviously thought the story was legit. One thing Breitbart aren't guilty of is firing anyone. The only person capable of that...Yep Oblowma. I think we are all beginning to see his lack of Exp and Leadership. Wasn't his reign suppose to be the beginning of a Post-Racial era? Instead we are all cowards. Including Oblowma. He acted first on crappy information when faced with a perceived delimma over racial statements.

This is a typical lefty maneuver happening before our eyes. The White House, NAACP, the liberal media and all those on the left are attempting to divide and destroy this country. They want to play the race card against the opposition and accuse them of being racist and say it’s because Obama is black. Now we have turned this racist Sherrod into the victim. She is a racist, this argument about content and redemption is smoke and mirrors. She wants us to believe she has seen the light and is changed and yet in her video she talks about how racist the tea party and Republicans and those who opposed Obamacare are. She talks about this opposition is because we have a black president. This video is from this past March, not 24 years ago. What Breitbart did was expose the racism within the NAACP, as they laughed and clapped right along here with Sherrod. And Fox did not run any video until after she was fired. You can’t blame them. Who you can blame is the liberal media who are nothing but activists for Obama and the NAACP and all the other liberals trying to smear and malign those who oppose Obama and his radical agenda as racists. The opposition to Obama has nothing to do to with the fact he is black. But this is what the left does, they lie because this is the only way they win support and advance their agenda. This latest play my the left really has nothing to do with content or redemption, it is about dividing and hating and destroying those on the right. Did Trent Lott who spent a month apologizing for telling a 100 year old man he would have made a great president receive forgiveness from those on the left, did George Allen who said one word “Macca” ever receive forgiveness? Has anyone on the right ever received forgiveness or allowed redemption for anything they have ever said or done? The only way the left can ever win is by destroying and lying and accusing the opposition of things they are not. We have a liberal media in bed with the left reporting their lies, assisting them with the destruction and dividing of this country. This is going to backfire on Obama and all his cronies. The Americn people are far more wise to what is happening to this country than the left think. They think we are all stupid and can continue to throw the race card around and we whitey's will roll over from guilt. Well, the left has overplayed this white guilt race card and this isn't going to work anymore. We are mad as hell and not going to take this BS no more!! I can see November from my house you racist baiting pigs!!

Posted By: This is a typical lefty maneuver happening before our eyes. The White House, NAACP, the liberal medi | July 22, 2010 at 01:41 PM

(WSJ)- Democrats will be gulping this morning at the Quinnipiac Poll’s latest results. For the first time in the survey’s history, Americans believe by a 48% to 40% margin that President Obama doesn’t deserve re-election. Almost as stinging, a plurality believe the country would have been better off if John McCain had beaten Mr. Obama in 2008.
The Quinnipiac Poll is pored over by political observers because it has a good predictive record and because its large sample size of nearly 2200 people implies a much smaller margin of error than most surveys — around 2 percentage points.
Mr. Obama’s approval rating continues to slide, and is dragging his party down. While last July Mr. Obama had a 57% positive rating, Quinnipiac now pegs him at just 44% approval — a number below President Bill Clinton’s approval rating just before his party lost control of Congress in 1994. When asked which party they plan to vote for this November, likely voters in the Quinnipiac survey picked Republicans by 43% to 38%.

This is priceless! Ben Smith a liberal hack propagandist, who was outed by Tucker Carlson as a member in good standing of the liberal Journolist, is lecturing us on "credibility"? As if he has any? Ha ha ha! Ben Smith has not one shred of credibility and when have you Mr. Smith ever sought to provide "context" when you slime conservatives on this joke of a blog?

For you to be reporting on the Journolist scandal gives Politico a credibility problem and there are a lot of people who are interested to see how long Van Der Hei and Harris are going to let you keep doing so without addressing it.
That doesn't mean I don't think Breitbart has a credibility problem, because I do. I just think you do, too, and until yours is cleared up, you shouldn't be the one calling out anyone else on credibility.

"Breitbart merely posted what it had but doesn't say if it sought the fuller context, as I hope most reporters would have."
Sought the fuller context? Since when do JournoListers and Beltway political reporters do that, when they can slam a conservative?
Ben Smith is a joke. A joke, with a "growing credibility problem."

"And Breitbart posted a video of a woman admitting she as a government employee had willingly violated the Civil Rights Act."
Does the right-wing ever bother to watch or read anything all the way through? That 10 second attention span is really showing. Otherwise you would have seen SHE WENT THROUGH WITH HELPING THE FARMER. I used to think the scorn academics and intellectuals held for the arch-right was elitist; more and more it's proving to be quite justified. It's intellectual laziness, not lack of intellect that's at fault. And in my opinion that is a far greater sin.

Posted By: "And Breitbart posted a video of a woman admitting she as a government employee had willingly violat | July 22, 2010 at 11:40 PM

HAHAHA at 11:40...Were you talking about Oblowma when you said; "." Does the right-wing ever bother to watch or read anything all the way through? That 10 second attention span is really showing."..........................LOLOLOL He fired her from the SAME video. You Libs are a joke. You call out the right for believing the video and say NOTHING about Oblowma and the NAACP. I can listen to many different opinions but they can't be brinwashed Useful Idiot hypocrites like you guys.

Sip Sip gets it right. Brietbart played a 2.5 minute clip of a 45 minute talk. It was not "doctored" as the first liberal poster insists. Every hard news organization in the world does the same thing. They conduct an hour of interview and edit the contents for time. Conservatives have been complaining for years that answers to questions have been re-edited by journalists in order to serve the "agenda." All of this leads to the Daily Caller exposing real instances of opinion writers and journalists conspiring to call anyone who questions Obama/Wright a racist. This is serious because it shows that the Conservatives have been correct for quite some time. Where have they been "lying without remorse?" Brietbart posted the clip that he had. The NAACP OWNS the entire video. Why didn't they check the original before they condemned Sharrod? Why did Sharrod need to pull over to the side of the road to send in her resignation before Glenn Beck got on?? Is the White House now admitting that Glenn Beck is more powerful than the President of the United States??? Is this the kind of calm, reasoned leadership that we were promised by Candidate Obama when he was constrasting his style to the crazy cowboy Bush??

Hey Ben,
Weren't you a JournoLister? Gee, don't you think that is an important point that needs to be brought up before you approving quote someone trashing the Daily Caller?
I have a new lede for you: "Politico now has a growing credibility problem because of reckless posting that lack a proper context."